Ring In the New Year with Chocolate

Everyone has little traditions that they repeat during the holidays. I have started a couple of them for New Year's Eve myself. One involves my inflatable bed in the living room so I can spend the last night of the year ( and the last night my Christmas trees will be up) enjoying the ornaments and twinkling lights for one last night. My other tradition of course involves champagne which can be very dry, and chocolate. Not mixed together mind you, but at the same time.

Actually several years ago I received a Hershey's kiss fondue pot as a gift. So each year I melt down some semi sweet chocolate chips, sugar, light cream and vanilla to make a chocolate fondue. With it I had some jet puffed marshmallows, pound cake, bananas, and strawberries. Of course the sweet of the chocolate and dipped items offset the champagne just right and made it the perfect treat to ring in the new year.

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope 2012 brings you prosperity and health, and if you feel like celebrating feel free to shoot me an e-mail so I can create a cake to add to your celebration.

Happy Birthday the Disney Way!

It has been a long time since I have done a Mickey Mouse cake. So long as a matter of fact that when Penny asked me to make one for her 16 year old's birthday I had to stop and think about what Mickey pans I have. I have a few, by the way. After a brief discussion she settled on the standing Mickey Mouse, traditionally decorated with a sheet cake under it to make sure they had enough food to feed the crown coming to his party. I made a butter cake and decorated the backgrounds in white so that they would allow Mickey to literally standout. The border was done with white swirl drops with red and yellow drops added in every other drop. It all made it pop, and pop for the birthday boy who was thrilled with his Mickey themed party.

Excellence in Families

I have often said how much I love my job. This cake is just another reason why. Robeson County Cooperative Extension delivers a program to families with youth between the ages of 10 and 14 called Strengthening Families. Families meet at the Cooperative Extension office one night a week for six weeks in a row. During that time they have the opportunity to have dinner together, then parents work in a group on discipline, communication and gaining a better understanding of their children. The children work on understanding their parents and gaining respect for them, communication and receive tools on how to handle tough topics like peer pressure, drugs, and sex. To date the program has been held three times with more than 10 families taking part in the program. About a month after the sixth session the group comes back together to meet, go over topics, talk about what works, and finally graduate from the program. Now needless to say, I always volunteer a cake but this time I did not know what to make. Finally the night before it came to me, make the kale like the certificate they would receive that night. Since we make the certificates it was nothing for me to save the certificate as a photo and print it out on edible paper. The cake was a butter cake and when I baked it it was much thinner than I expected so I cut it in half and made it a two layer cake. I already had an inkling that my audience liked icing so I was sure an extra layer of icing would not hurt any one's feelings. I printed the image on edible paper and then cut it down to fit the cake. It took less than a second to choose red for the border to highlight the red in the image. My other issue was that I could not find my traditional cardboard base to put the cake on. It so happened that the cake was the perfect size for my grandmothers cake plate/stand that I have yet to find a place for so it has been sitting on my dinning room table. Voila not only did we have a neat looking cake for a wonderful graduation for our families but I was able to kick it up a notch when I presented it. Which is exactly what tout families deserve. Congratulations to all of them on their graduation.

Ho Ho Holidays!

It wasn't just two days ago when a customer asked me if I had a bunch of orders for Christmas and I had to admit that I did not have a one.  Then just a few hours later I had a request for a Christmas cake of my choosing for an office Christmas celebration.  I love when people give me the choice because it just so happens, not long ago, I saw a cake design that I really wanted to try.
I used my paisley cake pan to create this Santa Clause.  I baked a double batch of my butter cake batter to make the cake and then went to work decorating.  The nice thing is that color wise it is simple.  Three colors and white icing to decorate the entire thing and there is not a lot of detail work until you get to the white icing with a rather large tip.  Then it was a case of making sure Santa had all the mustache, and beard detail that the spry old gent should have in all of our imaginations.  When I got done the cake had help give me a little more holiday spirit and I hope that those who had the opportunity to partake in the cake enjoyed it and got a little of the holiday spirit as well.

Monkey'ing Around S'More

Yes, I am one of those people who has reciepes sent to them on line. On any given day, if I have a second I will read through to see if there is anything interesting. This reciepe was not only eye catching it made me open it, click on a link, read, re-read, print, read again and then share. So you know that this reciepe had to have been more than an eye catcher. As a matter of fact, after work I went to the grocery store and picked up all the ingredients so I could make it tonight.
S'More Monkey Bread was the title of the reciepe, which to me has some of my favorite things, choclate and marshmallows. That alone was enough for me to try it but when I read the steps I had to go ahead and give it a shot. Long reciepe short; you quarter the biscuits in four cans of large biscuits, stick them in a zip bag with sugar and graham cracker crumbs and proceed to shake like shake and bake. Then you layer the biscuit quarters in a tube pan with chocolate chips and marshmallows. When you get done you take a melted concoction of butter, vanilla and marshmallow creme and pour it over the top. The entire pan goes in the oven and bakes for 35 minutes. One word of warning marshmallow expands when heated so you need to be prepared for run over. When it comes out you let it cool for a few minutes in the pan and then turn it upside down on a plate. The first words said when the finished product was served was, "holy moly that's a lot of something." Mind you it is ooey and gooey but delightfully warm and wonderful as you tear off chucks of this sweet goodness. Best served when hot and if you are looking to dress it up think about drizzling hot carmel or choclate sauce across it, or using them as dipping sauces for those with strong sweet tooths.